In recent years, the booming advancement of electronics industry and material sciences has successfully developed various types of new electronic products. Not only the manufacturing cost is lower and lower, but also the quality and function of the electronic products are significantly improved. Moreover, the improvement of semiconductor processing technology allows smaller and smaller semiconductor devices to be built, which has dominated the trends and demands of the current market of electronic products. In addition, the function and performance of those electronic products are also enhanced.
Blade server used in the current industry is basically installed in a chassis, which has a thickness of 1 U (1 U=1¾″ or 44.45 mm). One feature of the blade server is in that a variety of chipsets, electronic devices, and interface devices are disposed in a limited space of the blade server. Therefore, when designing a blade server, the question of how to use the least amount of chipsets, electronic devices and interface devices so as to achieve higher performance becomes the priority of all other concerns.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional voltage regulator circuit for a blade server is illustrated. As shown, the conventional voltage regulator circuit is formed on a circuit board 1 of the blade server. The voltage regulator circuit includes a plurality of standard voltage regulator modules 12 and a plurality of standby voltage regulator modules 14. The voltage regulator modules 12, 14 are connected with a power supply 16 installed on the circuit board 1, which can receive and convert the voltage output from a direct current (DC) high voltage power source. The standard voltage regulator modules 12 can output standard power sources of various voltages to the circuit board 1 when the blade server is turned on. On the other hand, the standby voltage regulator modules 14 can output standby power sources of various voltages to the circuit board 1, regardless of whether the blade server is turned on or is standing by. In this manner, the voltage regulator circuit can provide the chipsets, the electronic devices and the interface devices on the circuit board 1 with either standard power sources or standby power sources.
However, since the chipsets, the electronic devices and the interface devices of the circuit board 1 need power sources of different voltages, a plurality of voltage regulator modules are often installed on the circuit board 1, so as to generate power sources of different voltages for each of the chipsets, the electronic devices and the interface devices. If the power sources needed by some of the chipsets, the electronic devices or the interface devices are divided into the standard power sources and the standby power sources, the circuit board 1 then further requires a plurality of voltage regulator modules. This renders a higher production cost. In addition, it is also more difficult to dispose all these voltage regulator modules 12, 14 in the limited available space of the blade server.